


vigil

by llassah



Series: slave to fate, kings, chance and desperate men [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore, POV Allison, The Argent Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 15:01:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1351714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llassah/pseuds/llassah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first breath doesn't hurt. It's the sixth breath that feels like coming home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	vigil

The first breath doesn’t hurt. It’s the second that sends her rigid, arches her spine as she screams. She’d been ready to die, because she fights. A warrior must be prepared for her last breath. She wasn’t prepared for her second. “I had good last words,” she says when she can speak. Scott’s smile is beautiful, like the warmth of the sun and everything good. He strokes her hair with a hand that shakes.

“You can have another try in seventy years,” her dad says, “when I’m not around to hear them. And I’m cutting your allowance and revoking internet privileges. You are _forbidden from dying before you’re eighty eight._ ”

The sixth breath feels like coming home. She sits up, leans back against Scott, unable to stand or even move much yet. There’s so much blood, and it’s all hers. Her dad’s looking at her with everything in his eyes and she’ll go to him soon, seek refuge in his arms. Kira’s smiling, her eyes still the color of flame and she looks like she has nothing but energy, nothing but mischief and joy. Isaac’s looking right through her. There’s blood on his torn clothing, his hands. He looks shellshocked. Lost. Stiles is whispering to Derek, their heads close together, one of their fierce arguments, conducted with gestures and shorthand and it looks antagonistic but Derek’s holding him upright. Peter’s standing a little way off, taking the scene in with greedy eyes and Lydia—

God, Lydia. She’s never seen someone look so beautiful and so terrifying at the same times. She wants—she wants to _worship_ her, to crawl inside her skin and never leave, to let her nails draw blood and her teeth tear flesh. There’s a burn mark on the palm of her hand. It’s shaped like an arrow.

“I love you,” she says, and she’s saying it to everyone.

Except Peter.

*

She’s too weak to stand. Her dad picks her up easily. She’s getting used to the feeling of blood on her skin. He carries her to the car, and she knows that if he thought he could, he’d keep her under lock and key until this was over, and maybe it’s selfish, but she’d escape from every tower he put her in even if she died tomorrow. She thinks at one point he would have been proud of her for that. Not now. Not while his hands are slick with her blood, so he has to wipe them on his pants before he can even grip the steering wheel. He leans over, does her belt up. His hands are steady but he’s silent. It feels like he’s a universe away. Like the distance between them is too huge to think of.

She doesn’t look back when they leave. The journey home passes in a blink and he carries her from the car as if she weighed nothing, takes her straight to the bathroom. His hands are red again. He doesn’t say a word, leans her against the countertop, washes his hands methodically. Doesn’t scrub at them. He starts running a bath, tests the water with his hand, then his wrist. Puts some of the bath oil her mom used to love in it. He undresses her like she’s still a kid, like she’s small and everything makes sense and he’s stronger than any monster she can think of. Her clothes are heavy as they drop to the floor. Her skin’s red, tacky with dried blood and she can taste it in her mouth, she doesn’t know where to put her hands because she’s naked and she has a burn mark on her chest and silver under her skin and she _died—_

She breathes again. Again.

He washes her hands first. Argents have callused hands, covered with blood. Capable and strong. He kisses her knuckles, first on her right hand, then on her left. The floor must be hurting his knees, but he shows no sign of it. He presses his thumb to the pulse point on her wrist, nods to himself, drags the washcloth gently down her arm. The burn mark’s just above the line of the water. He probes it with careful fingers, stares at it for long moments. “She could bring this whole town down,” he murmurs. “You all could.”

She puts her hand over his, presses it to her heart. “Does that scare you?” she asks, sinks back so her hair’s trailing in the bathwater.

“It should. But I’m proud, so proud. And I’ll stick by you whatever you do. Even when it terrifies me.”

He shampoos her hair, puts one hand on her forehead to keep the bubbles out of her eyes, rinses her hair by dipping her back in the water, hand supporting her head. Washes the blood off the rest of her, even cleans her feet, sweeps his hands along the arches of her feet, her ankles. “I feel like I’m a knight. You know, in those books I loved?” she says as he gets the towel, wraps it around her and kisses her forehead.

“You still love those books,” he reminds her, offering her his arm. “You spent a summer learning how to joust, and I’m not sure if that’s going to make you a better fighter, or give you more to do at the renaissance fairs when you drop out of college.”

She looks up at him. Wonders if she’ll make it to college. If any of them will. “Is Stiles gonna be—he’s sick, isn’t he? Really sick.”

Her dad sighs, turns his back as she puts on her pajama pants, a vest. “Yes. And I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t know how this is going to end.”

He sits in the chair next to her bed. She knows he’s not going to sleep. Not tonight. “I’m failing econ,” she whispers, just as she’s being tugged under.

“You can study while you’re grounded,” he says, strokes her hair off her forehead. She goes to sleep with the weight of his hand, gentle and warm on her skin.


End file.
